The Pearl Harbor Murders

'Yeah, sure, but-'

'The circle has closed. Why do you ask questions as if you are a policeman?'

Hully gestured with an open hand. 'Mr. Harada, I meant no offense. I merely … we merely … thought we'd offer our sympathies in what we had assumed would be a dark hour, for you.'

Harada said nothing.

Sam said, 'I guess that was our mistake.'

For several long seconds, Hully just stared at the little grocer, who didn't even blink. Then Hully rushed out onto the wooden sidewalk, anger bubbling; Sam followed. Hully was several storefronts down, moving quickly through the interracial crowd, when Sam caught up with him. 'Take it easy, Hul….You just ran head-on into a cultural war I've fought every day of my life.'

Hully stopped, looked at his friend. 'Something smells.'

'Yeah, fish and dirty diapers and incense. What, you think Harada killed his own niece? Why? Because she was Christian?'

Hully didn't know what to say, and was still looking for words when a small dark man in a snap-brim fedora, orange tie, and brown rumpled suit was suddenly in their midst.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?' Detective John Jardine demanded. His dark eyes were daggers.

'I, uh… well…'

Jardine took Hully by the back of the arm and bus-tied him into a booth in a nearby cafe. Sam came along, a wide-eyed bystander, who slipped in next to Hully.

A waitress in a kimono came over, and Jardine said, 'Three coffees,' and she went away.

'You were grilling that guy,' Jardine said.

'You… you heard?'

'There's no damn door. Sure I heard-I was on my way in to interrogate him myself. What in the hell are you doing, walking my damn beat?'

Calmly, Hully said, 'Have you talked to my dad today?'

'No-we've missed each other, traded phone calls. Why, is he in this too?'

With another glance at Sam, who shrugged, Hully sighed and made a clean breast it-sharing not only the notion of the informal investigation he and his father had been conducting, but the various pieces of information they had discovered.

Though he looked irritated, the Portuguese detective jotted much of this down in his small notebook.

'Thank you for the information,' Jardine said, sliding the notebook into an inside suit-jacket pocket. 'Now- give your father a message for me: leave this to the professionals. I won't write about his jungle, and you and your father need to stay the hell out of mine.'

Hully leaned forward. 'Are you looking at any suspects, other than Harry Kamana?'

An eyebrow arched. 'I was about to interview that grocer, wasn't I? Damnit, boy-leave this to the police.' He looked sharply at Sam. 'What's your part in this?'

Sam's eyes widened. 'I'm just a friend of Hully's … I was a friend of Pearl's, too.'

'Where were you last night?'

'At a college dance-pregame bash.'

'But you weren't at the game today?'

'I don't like football.'

'But you went to the 'pregame bash'?'

'Well, sure-I do like girls.'

'Did you like Pearl Harada?'

'Not that way… hey, what is this?'

Jardine looked pointedly at Hully. 'How's this guy for another suspect? We're looking at everybody and everything… including you, Mr. Burroughs.'

A uniformed officer, a young Polynesian, peered in the cafE's storefront window and seemed relieved to see Jardine. The cop hurried in and stood next to the booth, hands behind him.

'Detective, may I have a word?' Jardine rose and, pointing to Hully and then at Sam, said, 'Stay,' as if to a pair of dogs.

Hully and Sam watched out the window as the uniformed cop delivered some slice of detailed information that made Jardine cover his mouth; then the detective pushed his fedora back on his head, and turned and gazed through the cafe window at Hully. He crooked a finger.

Hully raised his eyebrows and gestured to himself. Jardine frowned and nodded. Soon Sam had been left behind and Jardine-with the uniformed cop at the wheel-was sitting in the front seat of a squad car with Hully in back, feeling like a suspect.

'What's this about?' Hully asked. 'Just ride,' Jardine said.

Past the end of the Waikiki streetcar line, Jardine's driver headed out Diamond Head Road. The road was just about to begin making its winding way up the cliffs, when the squad car drew up along the roadside where another squad car was already parked.

Wordlessly, Jardine approached an opening between the rocks where another Polynesian uniformed cop was posted at the mouth of the path; the cop nodded to

Jardine and pointed down. Following the swarthy little detective-whose driver had stayed behind-Hully did his best to keep his balance as he navigated van-sized rocks down the grassy, sandy slope. On the beach below, the rock-infested white beach, lay a body-a naked man, sprawled on his stomach. Two more cops stood watch, but this fellow wasn't going anywhere.

The sand was moist under his slippers, as Hully trailed after the detective, who made a beeline to the body and knelt. The nude, slender frame of the corpse became a specific person when Hully got close enough to see the pale, sand-flecked, bulging-eyed face, the surf rolling up nearby, threatening to dampen the dead features.

'Recognize him?' Jardine said to Hully, looking up from beside the body.

“Terry Mizuha,' Hully said. His tongue felt thick; his head was spinning. He turned away from the corpse, walked a few steps down the beach, his back to the cops and the body.

Then Jardine was at his side. 'You said this boy might have more information to share.'

Hully had included a summary of his conversation with the (late) guitar player when he had filled Jardine in, at the Chinatown coffee shop.

'Yes-he said he had to think… to 'sort things out' He'd said maybe we'd talk in a few hours.'

'It's been a few hours-but Terry doesn't seem too talkative.'

Hully swallowed, shivered. 'How was he killed?'

The wind off the ocean was threatening to whip away Jardine's fedora, but somehow it stayed put. 'Garroted-probably with a small rope.'

Hully shook his head-such a violent way for so gentle a soul to meet his fate. 'Do you still think Harry Kamana killed Pearl Harada?'

Jardine twitched a nonsmile. 'I'd say a little doubt is raised.'

Hully snorted a humorless laugh. 'Well, Kamana sure as hell didn't kill this guy! I saw Terry at the Niumalu, well before lunch!'

Jardine heaved a sigh, and looked back toward the body. 'We were probably not meant to find him so soon…. This is a rocky portion of the beach, not visible from the highway. But some tourists stumbled across him… forty- five minutes ago.'

'What's the significance of finding him sooner, rather than later?'

The sharp eyes landed back on Hully; the faintest of smiles etched itself on Jardine's thin lips. 'I'm supposed to write this off as a mahu kill.'

'A what?'

'Mahu … fairy-homosexual. Lots of queers get killed in Waikiki, usually by soldiers or sailors. Kind of a… local tradition that horny servicemen, short of money, pick up a mahu on a street corner for a free 'thrill.' Some of these servicemen are sickened by the experience, and take it out on the poor bastards, after.'

'You don't really think this is a-'